Author: The Fix

"American Greed" Tackles Crackdown On Recovery Industry Fraud

The latest episode of the CNBC series examines the case of notorious sober home operator Kenny Chatman who was convicted of health care fraud and human trafficking.

By now you’ve likely heard of the Kenny Chatman story. He is perhaps the most nefarious of all sober living home operators, who used his business to sabotage clients’ recovery so he could continue collecting insurance payments, even using it as a front for prostitution.

His high-profile case shed a harsh light on fraud and the lack of regulation in the recovery industry, and spurred several reforms since.

“Kenny Chatman saw an opportunity, saw a chance to make a lot of money, and didn’t care who he hurt to make that happen,” assistant U.S. attorney Maria Villafana said on American Greed, the CNBC series which featured Chatman’s story on Monday, July 2.

Chatman’s South Florida facilities encouraged, rather than prohibited, drug use to perpetuate the cycle of “treatment” and keep millions of dollars’ worth of insurance payments coming in.

Last May, Chatman was sentenced to 27 years in prison after pleading guilty to health care fraud, money laundering, and human trafficking. His case led to 50 arrests and the shutdown of about 200 facilities.

The recovery industry is “really not a comprehensive system” that lacks a standard for treating substance use disorders, said Mark Mishek, president and CEO of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Insurers and regulators tend to focus on the short term, which is a big problem for people seeking recovery.

“It’s a disease that needs to be managed over a person’s lifetime. So, the system we have today, for example, may provide insurance coverage for a short residential stay or for an outpatient program,” said Mishek. “That’s not enough. Patients and their families need to be involved in recovery for many, many weeks if not months and years in order to get well.”

Last July, Florida enacted a law that established tighter rules and penalties on sober living homes that scam clients and falsely advertise their services. It also mandates background checks for any owners, directors, and clinical supervisors at treatment centers.

And last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would increase coverage for the treatment of substance use disorder under Medicaid, and would expand the use of medication like methadone for treating substance use disorder.

View the original article at thefix.com

3 July 2018
The Newly Sober and Recently Incarcerated Find Purpose at DV8 Kitchen

People want to look into the eye of someone they’re helping by eating there, and our staff wants to see people enjoying what they’ve made.

Whatever our experience with life is, was, or will be, there’s one thing we all have in common: food. It’s one of the things we need to survive, along with the social support and shelter we need to thrive. These things come together in a powerful way at a dine-in bakery in Kentucky called DV8 kitchen, where Rob Perez and his wife oversee a staff comprised entirely of people in recovery, many of whom are coming out of incarceration and looking for a second chance. After getting sober at 25, Perez, already a career hospitality veteran at a young age, decided to open a fourth restaurant located within walking distance from three different transitional living facilities. They serve homemade bread and southern breakfast-style foods, and, most importantly, employees and customers are always interacting with one another. We spoke to Perez about the employees he’s lost to addiction in the past, the ways in which the bakery is impacting the community, and that time NFL Quarterback Chad stopped by to teach a workshop on leadership and teamwork.

The Fix: Would you say there is a stronger chance of sobriety if you set your employees up with a job in a sober environment?

Rob Perez: When you do a job with quality, you build self respect, self-esteem and pride in a craft you’re developing. In recovery, we need a support system and an accountability system. And the camaraderie you get out of a job when you have common interests, backgrounds and circumstances, is pretty powerful. We’ve had a few employees tell us that it’s nice not to feel bad about turning down invites from coworkers to grab a drink after work, or even feeling pressured to do so. Our staff don’t leave programs or meetings or houses and come to a foreign environment 40 hours a week, they come to a place where we all speak the same language, have the same customs, and discussions, so its a 24/7 program.

Are there any logistical benefits to the way it’s set up?

From a practical standpoint, even if people have insurance, most of the time, a recovery center’s money runs out after 30 days, and people have to start to contribute to the house they’re living in. So if businesses don’t take a chance on someone who has a difficult schedule to work around and a past to have to deal with, these folks can’t get through the program they’re in, and, generally, outpatient programs are a minimum of six months to one-year. Also, many of our employees have mentioned how nice it is to work with others who truly understand what they’re going through.

Have the people you work with at the sober living houses given you any feedback about your impact?

They think it’s working well as there’s a lot of accountability on the residents (our employees) to stay on track with the program. They really need to follow their program while they’re at work or they will be asked to leave the program altogether. In that way, we work in tandem with the sober living houses to ensure the employee is meeting their goals and staying on a good path.

What do your employees do about housing when their stay nearby is up?

The houses we work with have separate sober living environments our employees can go to after their initial first year of treatment. If they’re interested, we can also connect them with community services that will help them find housing.

Why do you think there is still so much hesitancy to give people a second chance?

When you say you’re a second chance employer you run a risk of people thinking ‘second chance’ means ‘second rate.’ They don’t want to spend money on second rate. What we’ve been taught in society is to be hesitant in employing convicted offenders and recovering addicts. Through DV8, we hope to show them success and really convince them that it doesn’t hurt to offer addicts or those who were previously incarcerated a second chance. Though we’ve only been open for about nine months, I’ve noticed that a handful of our employees have directly reached out to government officials to discuss the importance of offering second chance employment opportunities.

Did people know your triple-bottom line when you first opened?

In our first two weeks, people felt insecure about coming to a place that had many people in recovery in it, but we also didn’t formally announce it. Without us saying it, they knew people had incarceration in their past. But once I started to contact the media and talk about our mission and the people, it all changed. People want to know that they’re making an impact, and that’s why the glass wall we have between our cooks and service people and the customers is so important. People want to look into the eye of someone they’re helping by eating there, and our staff wants to see people enjoying what they’ve made. Ultimately, though, we want them to be unidentifiable from anyone else. The way they stand up straight, the enthusiasm, their confidence, we can see that they’re changing the way the public thinks about recovery and addiction.

Tell me about your personal connection to the mission.

Addiction found me and has crossed the paths of 13 other people in our other for-profit restaurants and, now, they’re gone. It affected the best server we ever had, it affects my city, and it affected me. I was a binge drinker. I didn’t have to drink everyday but when I did, I would frequently get out of control. I was always the last to leave a party, and the deeper I got, the more blackouts I had, taking risks with driving and getting out of embarrassing situations I had to reconstruct the next day. I was not as attentive of a husband as i should have been. I wasn’t being a good person.

Rob and his wife, Diane. Image via DV8 Kitchen.

When did you decide to get help?

I had a blackout, went back to my workplace (then, it was the Hard Rock Cafe, on the corporate side) and made a fool of myself. I got suspended from work and had to tell my wife I couldn’t be paid for two weeks and I said I needed help. Diane’s an angel. She loved me through it and kept me honest and kicked my ass if she needed to.

It also helps when pro-athletes come teach you a workshop.

We’ve had a bank executive come to talk to employees about personal finance, a yoga instructor to talk about mindfulness, and, yes, NFL quarterback Chad Pennington came in to talk about teamwork. During his workshop, he discussed his journey to the NFL and why both teamwork and leadership were important. He also shared more personal stories about how his Christian values have helped him through his career and life journey in general. But, all kinds of people in the community are signing up three months in advance to lead these workshops. They really want to help.

What do you think it is about the food industry that makes it such a popular ‘second-chance’ job?

My gut is it has to do with working really hard physically, it’s mental as well. You learn to get along with people, form long-lasting relationships, make mistakes without fear and be able to say sorry. Then you get to serve your food and get instant feedback. In recovery, we need to know what our results are. I think we thrive in an environment where we “know right away.” If someone likes it, or what you do, it’s good to know it. There’s something spiritual about a dinner table, too, and having a meal with someone. Food, dining, and breaking bread is special and is innate to our happiness.

Image via DV8 Kitchen.

View the original article at thefix.com

3 July 2018
Colleges Create Opioid Response Plans Amid National Crisis

Even though overdose deaths on college campuses are relatively rare, many schools are still choosing to put a plan in place.

Colleges across the country are focused on responding to the opioid epidemic, even as opioid abuse and overdose deaths remain very rare on campus.

According to the American College Health Association, about 7 to 12% of the college-aged population use opioids for non-medical purposes, and about 2 to 3% use heroin. Comparatively, about 5% of U.S. adults report misusing opioids.

“Colleges definitely have an obligation to address the opioid epidemic as it manifests on their campuses,” Beth DeRicco, director of higher education outreach at Caron Treatment Centers, told Inside Higher Ed. “While a small percentage of students misuse pain relievers, the danger of opioids and the way in which use has risen makes it an incredible concern.”

In 2016, the American College Health Association released guidelines for how colleges can address opioids and opioid misuse.

Since then, campuses around the country have crafted their own responses to the opioid epidemic. At Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, naloxone is now available in 50 defibrillator boxes around campus, including in all 11 dormitories. Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in North Carolina trained staff on how to recognize signs of opioid addiction, changed the locks on single-stall bathrooms and had school security officers begin to carry naloxone.

The University of Wisconsin Madison hired two substance abuse counselors and made an agreement with Walgreens to allow students to purchase naloxone.

At the same time, a 2016 survey of students at the University of Wisconsin Madison found that just 0.8% of the campus population, or 55 students, reported having any issues with substance use disorder. Of those, only 5.4%—less than 3 students—reported opioid misuse.

One reason opioid abuse may be lower on campus is that opioid addiction is most common among people who have less education, fewer job prospects and live in poverty. However, reaching out to students might help those in their personal lives who are not enrolled in college.

For example, Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland has not seen any opioid overdoses, according to Tiffany Boykin, dean of student engagement. However, in the surrounding county 37 people overdosed in the first quarter of this year, she noted.

“It may not be a student who is actively engaged in practicing. They may have a parent or spouse or a friend who is affected,” Boykin said. “The majority of our students are working professionals. When they’re trying to cope with a family member or a loved one who is affected, it’s very difficult for them to be successful.”

View the original article at thefix.com

3 July 2018
Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Introduced By Sen. Chuck Schumer

The bill tackles marijuana rescheduling, advertising regulations, expungement and research.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer introduced a new bill to regulate marijuana at the federal level, High Times reported. The bill isn’t aimed at legalizing the drug but the proposal would decriminalize it.

Schumer previously announced plans to introduced the bill in April. The legislation would eliminate pot from the Controlled Substances Act, where it currently sits alongside drugs like LSD and heroin. By removing marijuana’s Schedule I classification, Schumer’s bill would “dramatically change the way federal prohibition laws would be enforced.”

The proposed measure would still allow states to establish their own marijuana laws, including Alaska, California and Colorado.

“The time to decriminalize marijuana is now,” Sen. Schumer said in a press statement. “The new Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act is about giving states the freedom to be the laboratories that they should be and giving Americans—especially women and minority business owners as well as those convicted of simple possession of marijuana intended for personal use—the opportunity to succeed in today’s economy.”

He added that the law “is simply the right thing to do.”

Co-sponsored by fellow Senators Bernie Sanders, Tim Kaine and Tammy Duckworth, the bill would introduce several other changes if it’s passed into law. For one, it would route tax dollars to a Treasury trust fund for weed businesses owned by women as well as “socially and economically disadvantaged” people.

The legislation would also allow the Treasury Department to control various aspects of advertising and marketing around marijuana. The proposed bill would also set nearly $750 million aside for highway safety programs and research into the “pitfalls of driving under the influence of THC,” not to mention developing technology to “reliably measure impairment.”

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Schumer’s bill is that it aims to grant $100 million to “help expunge criminal records of folks who have been convicted in the past for marijuana-related crimes.”

For many of the people helping to get the bill off the ground, High Times observed, it’s about ironing out the problems with how marijuana laws are enforced across the country—especially across racial divides.

“Far too many Americans are currently incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses,” said Sen. Duckworth. “And they are disproportionally people of color, despite the fact that African Americans and Caucasians use marijuana at the same rates.”

Sen. Sanders is particularly hopeful that the bill goes into effect, given that his home state (Vermont) legalized recreational weed earlier this year. Vermont is also exploring the possibility of clearing nearly 3,000 people of misdemeanor marijuana convictions. That said, much of the nation remains hugely inconsistent in its weed laws.

View the original article at thefix.com

2 July 2018
Feds Charge Dozens Of Dark Web Dealers In Massive Sweep

The dark net is no longer a safe haven for online drug dealers, says the Justice Department.

Last Tuesday, more than 35 people were charged with dealing illicit drugs on the dark web, the online marketplace previously thought untouchable by authorities.

The charges mark the first time that authorities went after the dealers on these secretive online platforms rather than the managers of the online spaces, the New York Times noted.

The bust resulted in the seizure of opioids, cocaine, over 100 guns and assault rifles, a grenade launcher, five cars, and almost $24 million worth of gold, cash, Bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies.

“Criminals who think that they are safe on the dark net are wrong,” said deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein. “We can expose their networks.”

Homeland Security agents went undercover online as money launderers working with virtual currencies.

“Special agents were able to walk amongst those in the cyberunderworld to find those vendors who sell highly addictive drugs for a profit,” said Homeland Security Investigation’s Derek Benner. “[Homeland Security Investigations] has infiltrated the dark net.”

The captured suspects came from all across the United States, aged mostly in their 20s and 30s, and sold opioids, cocaine, meth, and marijuana on the web.

One thing many of them shared was the acceptance of Bitcoin as payment for their products. Bitcoin may seem like an obvious choice of currency for nefarious dealings, being independent of government controls as well as being hard to track as it is transferred from one anonymous user to another.

However, to hold all bitcoin users accountable, every transfer is recorded in a ledger that, while hard to understand to the average person, is pretty much an open record of everyone who has ever laid hands on that bitcoin. With time, law enforcement will be able to reliably track bitcoin transfers, some cyber security experts say.

This marks a departure from the old strategy used by authorities to crack down on online crime: going after the managers of the trade platforms. In 2015, authorities shut down the online bazaar Silk Road and prosecuted the owner and founder, Ross Ulbricht, also known by his online nickname “Dread Pirate Roberts.” He is now serving a life sentence.

But the lure of an anonymous online drug market remains, evidenced by the myriad cryptocurrencies arising that are made expressly for difficulty in detection.

“Some newer cryptocurrencies have features that make the tracing of them quite complicated,” said Greg Nevano, an ICE official who investigates cryptocurrencies. “These new anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies are clearly ripe for illicit use in an effort to subvert legitimate law enforcement inquiries.”

View the original article at thefix.com

2 July 2018
Link Between Heroin Addiction And Narcolepsy Examined

Could opiates be the key to treating the chronic sleep disorder?

Heroin could be the next big breakthrough in treating narcolepsy.

That’s one possibility raised in a paper published recently in the journal Science Translational Medicine, detailing new work probing the connection between addiction and the chronic sleep disorder.a

When narcoleptics nod off or lose muscle control, it’s caused by a lack of hypocretin in the brain. But to probe the connection further between the wakefulness-controlling chemical and the sleep disorder linked to it, researchers started studying the brains of dead narcoleptics. In the process, they stumbled across one brain that stood out.

It had a lot more hypocretin-producing cells than the other brains – and then the researchers learned that person had been addicted to heroin. So the scientists decided to start looking at the brains of people who had struggled with opioid use disorder before their deaths.

In the first four samples they studied, researchers found the opioid-addicted brains had an average of 54% more hypocretin-producing cells than regular brains.

“So it was natural to ask if opiates would reverse narcolepsy,” study co-author Jerry Siegel, a neuroscientist at the University of California Los Angeles, told Gizmodo.

The next step, Siegel explained, was trying a study with mice.

Over a two-week period, researchers drugged up narcoleptic mice with regular doses of morphine. The experiment upped their hypocretin-making cells, and the effect lasted for a few weeks after scientists cut off the dosage.

Basically, the researchers said, the opiates wake up dormant cells that make the necessary chemical.

“Understanding why opiates ‘awaken’ these cells is a task for the future,” Siegel said.

But other scientists voiced reservations about the work. Even if opioids turn out to be an effective treatment in humans, there are practical limitations.

“No mother of a 15-year-old with narcolepsy would sign onto us giving them several doses of morphine a day,” sleep expert Thomas Scammell of Harvard Medical School told Gizmodo.

Yet, the findings could herald new hope for addiction treatment. If opiates users have more neurons that make hypocretin, the researchers suggested, then maybe they need less.

“If chronic use of opioids is increasing hypocretin production—and the authors show that nicely—then that could amplify the rewarding aspects of these drugs, making addiction all that much worse,” Scammell said. “I think that’s actually the most interesting part of their research.”

View the original article at thefix.com

2 July 2018
Hemp Could Soon Be Legal

A bill to legalize hemp has passed the Senate and is moving to the House.

The U.S. Senate last week green-lit a bill that would legalize growing hemp.

Included as part of a massive farm bill, the proposed legislation sailed through the upper chamber 86-11, paving the way to allow industrial growth of the non-psychoactive plant. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) touted the legislation as a farmer-friendly measure.

“I have heard from many Kentucky farmers who agree it’s time to remove the federal hurdles and give our state the opportunity to seize its full potential and once again become the national leader for hemp production,” McConnell said. “That is why I strongly advocated for this measure to be included in the Farm Bill.”

This isn’t the first time McConnell floated hemp legislation; in April he introduced the Hemp Farming Act, which could have legalized the plant, according to Forbes.

Then in June, he inserted the measure’s key provisions into the 2018 Farm Bill. The move would later spark some squabbling in the committee on whether to remove cannabis derivatives like cannabidiol (CBD), but ultimately pot opponents opted not to demand the change, according to Forbes.

The consistently anti-cannabis Attorney General Jeff Sessions has signaled that he will not fight the hemp provisions, McConnell told the Associated Press.

Currently, hemp—a crop derived from the cannabis sativa species—is a Schedule I controlled substance. The new provisions would remove it from that list and allow farmers to get federal crop insurance when they grow it.

But despite its recent win, the bill still has other hurdles to clear before it passes. The House has a separate farm bill, one that tightens controversial work requirements for food stamps. That is expected to generate some contentious debate as the two chambers reconcile their competing pieces of legislation.

As of now, farmers in McConnell’s home state are already enjoying the benefits of hemp cultivation, thanks to a pilot program launched in 2014. That year, the state saw 32 acres of hemp planted; this year, officials have approved more than 14,000.

“It’s tremendous for us,” eighth-generation tobacco farmer Brian Furnish told the Associated Press. “We can start going after crop insurance and research dollars.”

View the original article at thefix.com

2 July 2018
Tom Hanks’ Son Chet: Parents Helped "Every Step Of The Way" To Sobriety

The actor and rapper says parental support and the birth of his daughter gave him the motivation to get sober.

Chet Hanks has struggled with substance use under the public eye but is now sober thanks to his parents.

Chet Hanks, the son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, has had a long, public struggle with substance use disorder, but the musician says those days are behind him. His biggest motivator for getting his life together was becoming a parent.

“It was the prospect of having a kid, and I knew that in nine months there’s gonna be a baby here,” Hanks said in an ET interview with Katie Krause on Tuesday. “That gave me the motivation to be like, ‘OK, I’ve had my time now, and I need to move on.’”

Hanks said he had long known he had a problem and needed to get clean, but was unable to find the energy or motivation to do so.

“There’s a part of you that knows that you need to make a change but you can’t really shut that door on your life and just move on to a new chapter,” he explained. “For me, it took something drastic happening, like becoming a father, for me to make the change.”

His daughter, Michaiah, was born in April of 2016. While fatherhood served as an impetus to kick his habits, it was his own parents who gave him the support he needed to follow through. “They couldn’t be more supportive,” he explained. “Every step of the way… They’ve always been there for me and I’m really lucky.”

His famous parents love being grandparents, and Hanks says they offer to babysit very often. “It’s awesome seeing them being grandparents as well, because I was really close with my grandparents and now my daughter gets to have the same experience,” Hanks said.

Hanks’ sobriety has also provided inspiration in his rap career as his duo act, FTRZ, tackles the issues the pair has faced in their debut album, Ocean Park EP.

“I feel a responsibility like to tell the truth… and be as open as possible, because there is such a bad drug epidemic going on,” Hanks explained. “It’s a bad problem and I feel like there should be no stigma around people who get sober, because you need to be open to help other people.”

In sharing his experiences, he hopes to help others.

“If you just get sober and try to keep it a secret, you’re not really helping anybody because there could be somebody that’s struggling really hard and if you can be an inspiration to that person to make the change for them to change their life, you can’t put a price on that,” he said.

Hanks is also working with his father for the first time on an upcoming World War II movie called Greyhound.

View the original article at thefix.com

2 July 2018
Language Matters: A Recovery Scientist Explains the Impact of Our Words

If a person has internalized the negative stereotypes associated with being “an addict,” are they more likely to have a fixed mindset and believe they cannot improve or change?

Over 21 million Americans have substance use disorder and fewer than 3.8 million individuals receive treatment each year. 28 percent of the individuals who need treatment, but do not receive it, report stigma as a major barrier to accessing care. If we want to destigmatize addiction — a highly stigmatized disorder — then we need a unified language.

The words we use have been shown by researchers to not only negatively influence our attitudes toward people in recovery and people who use substances — to the extent of suggesting that a health condition is a moral, social, or criminal issue — but they also impact access to health care and recovery outcomes.

This article isn’t a mandate for everyone to start policing language, but it was motivated by a genuine desire to look at the evidence: how we speak to someone with substance use disorder matters. In the midst of a public health crisis, we can’t dismiss the use of language as just semantics, trivial, or being overly politically correct. We don’t have that luxury when 64,000 Americans die from drug overdoses each year and over 88,000 die from alcohol-related causes.

Building upon an already existing foundation of work in this field, recovery scientist and researcher Robert Ashford and colleagues conducted a larger study of the general public measuring both implicit and explicit bias elicited by certain common words and phrases, which was published in June. I was fortunate to speak with him about the study, the impact of language, and how we can apply this information to help fight stigma.

The Fix: Let’s say you’re among peers in recovery and you refer to yourself by a term which your study has shown to be a derogatory, like “addict,” “alcoholic,” or “substance abuser.” How does that contribute towards the stigma those in recovery face?

Robert Ashford: This is an interesting question, and one from an evidence perspective, we don’t have exact answers on. Anecdotally, we believe that even though it is probable that this type of language has an impact on things like self-stigma, self-esteem, and a sense of self-worth, it is more important that people have the right to label themselves as they choose, especially as it concerns the recovery community. The fact is that the use of pejorative labels has had a decades-long place in popular mutual-aid programs like AA and trying to tell the mutual aid recovery community what to do isn’t a goal, nor should it be in our minds. At the end of the day though, it is important for people in recovery to understand that the use of such labels may become internalized over time, leading to decreases in self-esteem and such. However, without more evidence, it is merely hypothetical at this point.

In what ways does it impact their lives? For example: their access to, and quality of, healthcare?

Generally, the use of terms such as “substance abuser,” “addict,” and others have been found to be highly associated with negative attitudes (i.e. bias) in the general public, among behavioral health professionals, and in medical professionals. These negative associations ultimately lead to all types of stigma (social and professional) and ultimately to very explicit discrimination. On a personal level, we know that just over 25% of individuals with a severe substance use disorder don’t seek treatment each year due to the belief that they will be stigmatized or discriminated against by their friends, neighbors, or employers. Additionally, this type of bias has also been found to decrease the willingness and efficacy of medical services delivered to patients that have a severe substance use disorder. Access and the quality of treatment in the United States has many barriers and enhancing those barriers through the use of language is an easy fix – just by changing the way we talk!

What would be an alternative, less-stigmatizing term?

Any term that puts the focus on the individual as a human is bound to be less stigmatizing. For example, individuals are not “addicts” or “substance abusers,” but rather, “people with a severe substance use disorder” or a “person who uses substances.” Language changes constantly, but the one commonality in terms of bias and stigma seems to be that when we can restore or focus on the humanity of an individual through our language, we will be speaking from a better place.

How might that term be more empowering to the individual, and in what ways?

As a person in recovery, I can speak personally that when using terms that are rooted in humanity, I get a better sense of myself and the conditions that I have either lived with or am living through. Often times when we are in the midst of a severe substance use disorder, faced with a constant barrage of language that is meant to disempower and dehumanize, we began to internalize those labels. While it is possible in certain settings that these terms are used as a reminder of a previous identity – intending to provide some sense of catharsis in the recovery process, or a mechanism for not returning to a previous state – I think it is equally plausible that we can be reminded and have that benefit by using terms that don’t immediately degrade our very essence as people.

I’m curious how a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset might inform our choices of words? Corollary, how does each mindset inform how we interpret what we hear from others?

This an interesting question, especially in applying the growth and fixed mindset theories from childhood development and education to the field of substance use and recovery. The theory suggests that those who believe they can improve or change (growth mindset) are more likely to engage in activities that allow them to grow, and those that believe they cannot improve or change (fixed mindset) or less likely to do so. In the context of recovery and substance use, this has immense potential to inform how language truly does impact individuals in or initiating recovery. If a person has internalized the negative stereotypes associated with being “an addict,” are they more likely to have a fixed mindset? While there are surely myriad reasons for the challenges faced by people with a severe substance use disorder, mindset may indeed be a big part of it.

You’ve done an incredible amount of work in educating both those in recovery and clinicians about the importance of the language we use. Some of your research features infographics about negative language and presents a positive alternative (below). For those who may need further clarification, what is the difference between pharmacotherapy (or medication to treat substance use disorders) and medication-assisted recovery?

The infographics we made from our results have sure inspired a lot of conversation – which is exactly what we hoped for as scientists! One of the constant topics has been around “medication-assisted treatment,” “pharmacotherapy,” and “medication-assisted recovery.”

Pharmacotherapy is the use of medications to treat a disorder/disease/ailment – specific to our field, this would imply treating a substance use disorder with medications. The term had significantly more positive associations than a similar term, “medication-assisted treatment” from our tests and we wanted to make the suggestion to use it instead.

“Medication-assisted recovery” on the other hand can be considered the use of substance use disorder medications, combined with the use of recovery support services such as MARS recovery meetings, engaging with a peer recovery support specialist, utilizing a recovery community organization, or attending a MAR-friendly 12-step meeting. The biggest difference is that not everyone who uses substance use disorder pharmacotherapy wants, or would consider themselves, in recovery. Keeping the two terms separate gives people an option, and from a research prospective, both terms are associated with the positive and their use isn’t likely to elicit implicit bias among the general public.

Figure: Suggested Recovery dialects

View the original article at thefix.com

2 July 2018
Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson Talks Mental Health, Psychiatric Drugs

“People’s brains develop at different stages in their lives, and there’s no cookie-cutter approach to the human brain. It’s terrible what they’re doing to kids.”

Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of British metal legends Iron Maiden, has a reputation for being very outspoken and polarizing. Now the frontman is speaking out against giving psychiatric drugs to children.

As Dickinson said in the Heavy Hour podcast, he is “not a believer” in giving psychiatric meds to children. He recalled the time when a doctor wanted to put his son Austin on Ritalin.

“I was just, like, ‘I won’t give drugs to my son. What is this? He’s five years old,’” Dickinson explained. “He looks pretty normal to me. He runs around a lot; that’s what five-year-olds do.’”

Dickinson added that “maybe” psychiatric drugs could be given to children “in extreme cases, but even then, I’m not sure. What the hell did we do before drugs with kids?”

As the father of three children, Dickinson acknowledges that “every family comes with the baggage of the previous family; it inherits it. And so you have to run with that. A certain amount of it is instinct; some of it is learned behavior; some of it is behavior that you might have to unlearn.”

Mental health issues may not be able to be “learned” away as Dickinson suggests, but his stance against prescribing children psychiatric drugs is a matter of dispute among many mental health treatment providers.

One study published earlier this year suggests that children are actually under-prescribed psychiatric medications that could help their ADHD, depression, and anxiety disorders. On the other hand, California had to pass multiple pieces of legislation to stop the growing trend of the overmedication of children in foster care.

The classic Iron Maiden song “Ace’s High” includes a legendary speech from Winston Churchill, who some believe had bipolar disorder.

Dickinson says, “Churchill would unquestionably have been medicated. And many of the great leaders of the world would have been medicated. People’s brains develop at different stages in their lives, and there’s no cookie-cutter approach to the human brain. It’s terrible what they’re doing to kids. And it’s all because of the drive to categorize and put people in little boxes to make it easy for people.”

Dickinson’s children also steered clear from illicit drugs, thanks to their rock star father, who brought them out on the road when they were young.

Dickinson told The Mirror, “What was great for my kids was when they were growing up we took them out on the road. They would be backstage, and there would be some idiot who’d done too much coke sweating profusely, teeth chattering. ‘Daddy, why is that man doing that?’ ‘That’s because he’s on drugs,’ I’d say. ‘Drugs? Are they a bad thing?’ I’d say, ‘Judge for yourself.’

“The best possible antidote for people not to take drugs is to go and see a bunch of people who are completely messed up out of their brains. They got an education in drugs and made good decisions.”

View the original article at thefix.com

30 June 2018